GLACIERS MELTING FAST

Himalayan glaciers have been melting twice as fast since the start of this centur y due to climate change. A 2019 study, published in an international journal, claims that glaciers have been losing the equivalent of more than a vertical foot and a half of ice each year since 2000 -- double the amount of melting that took place from 1975 to 2000. At this rate, the glaciers may have lost as much as a quarter of their enormous mass over the last four decades. Incidentally, Asian nations are burning ever-greater loads of fossil fuels and biomass, sending soot into the sky, much of which eventually lands on snowy glacier sur faces, where it absorbs solar energy and hastens melting.